One lamp was lighted in the shadowy room — a lamp on the writing desk, where Tait had apparently been working. A ledger lay open there, and his collection of utilitarian jades was scattered over the desk — the primitive scrapers, chisels, and ax heads.

Tait yanked a dust cover off a deskside chair and motioned Qwilleran to sit down, while he himself stood behind the desk and opened the envelope. The newsman glanced at the ledger upside down; it was a catalog of the jade collection, written in a precise, slanted hand.

While the jade collector studied the photographs, Qwilleran studied the man's face. This is not the look of grief, he thought; this is exhaustion. The man has not been sleeping well. His plan is not working out.

Tait shuffled through the photographs, crimping the corners of his mouth and breathing heavily.

"Pretty good photography, isn't it?" said Qwilleran.

"Yes," Tait murmured. "Surprising detail." "I didn't realize he had taken so many pictures." "We always take more than we know we can use." Qwilleran cast a side-glance at the armoire. There was no fine dark line down the side of the cabinet — at least, none that could be discerned from where he sat.

Tait said, "This desk photographed well." "It has a lot of contrast. Too bad there's no picture of the Biedermeier wardrobe." He watched Tait closely. "I don't know what happened. I was sure Bunsen had photographed the wardrobe." Tait maneuvered the corners of his mouth. "It's a fine piece. It belonged to my grandfather." Koko squirmed again and voiced a small protest, and the newsman stood up, strolled back and forth and patted the silky back. He said: "This is the first time this cat has gone visiting. I'm surprised he's so well behaved." He walked close to the armoire, and still he could see no fine dark line.

"Thank you for the pictures," Tait said. "I'll go and get the other cat." When the collector left the room, Qwilleran's curiosity came to a boil. He walked to the armoire and examined the side panel. There was indeed a crack running vertically from top to bottom, but it was virtually invisible. Qwilleran ran his finger along the line. It was easier to feel than to see. Only the camera with its uncanny vision had observed clearly the hairline joining.

Koko was struggling now, and Qwilleran placed him on the floor, keeping the leash in his hand. Experimentally he ran his free hand up and down the crevice. He thought, It must be a concealed compartment. It's got to be! But how does it open? There was no visible hardware of any kind.

He glanced toward the foyer, listened for approaching footsteps, then applied himself to the puzzle. Was it a touch latch?

Did they have touch latches in the old days? The cabinet was over a hundred years old.

He pressed the side panel and thought that it had a slight amount of give, as if it were less than solid. He pressed again, and it responded with a tiny cracking noise like the sound of old, dry wood. He pressed the panel hard along the edge of the crack — first at shoulder level, then higher, then lower. He reached up and pressed it at the top, and the side of the armoire slowly opened with a labored groan.

It opened only an inch or two. Cautiously Qwilleran increased the opening enough to see what was inside. His lips formed a silent exclamation. For a moment he was transfixed. He felt a prickle in his blood, and he forgot to listen for footsteps. Koko's ears were pivoting in alarm.

Tennis shoes were coming noiselessly down the corridor, but Qwilleran didn't hear. He didn't see Tait enter the room… stop abruptly… move swiftly. He heard only the piercing soprano scream, and then it was too late.

The scene blurred in front of his eyes. But he saw the spike. He heard the snarls and bloodchilling shrieks. There was a shock of white lightning. The lamp crashed. In the darkness he saw the uplifted spike… saw the spiraling white blur… felt the tug at his hand… heard the great wrenching thud… felt the sharp pain… felt the trickle of blood… and heard a sound like escaping steam. Then all else was still.

Qwilleran leaned against the armoire and looked down. Blood was dripping from his fingertips. The leash was cutting into his other palm, and twelve feet of nylon cord were wound tightly around the legs of G. Verning Tait, who lay gasping on the floor. Koko, anchored at the other end of the leash, was squirming to slip out of his harness. The room was silent except for the hard breathing of the prisoner and the hissing of a female cat on top of the Biedermeier armoire.

24

The nurse in the First Aid room at the Fluxion bandaged the slash on Qwilleran's hand.

"I'm afraid you'll live," she said cheerfully. "It's only a scratch." "It bled a lot," he said. "That spike was razor-sharp and a foot long! It was actually a jade har poon used for spearing walrus in the Arctic." "How appropriate — under the circumstances," said the nurse with an affectionate side-glance at Qwilleran's moustache.

"Lucky I didn't get it in the stomach!" "The wound looks clean," said the nurse, "but if it gives you any trouble, see a doctor." "You can skip the commercial," Qwilleran said. "I know it by heart." She patted the final strip of adhesive tape, and admired her handiwork.

The nurse had made a good show of the bandage. It did nothing for Qwilleran's typing efficiency, but it enhanced his story when he faced his audience at the Press Club that evening. An unusually large number of Fluxion staffers developed a thirst at five thirty, and the crowd formed around Qwilleran at the bar. His published account had appeared in the afternoon edition, but his fellow staffers knew that the best details of any story never get into print.

Qwilleran said, with barely suppressed pride: "It was Koko who alerted me to the hoax. He licked one of Bunsen's photos and drew attention to the secret compartment." "I used sidelighting," Bunsen explained. "I put a light to the left of the camera at a ninety-degree angle, and it showed up the tiny crack. The camera caught it, but the eye would never know it was there." "When I discovered the swing-out compartment packed full of jade," said Qwilleran, "I was so fascinated that I didn't hear Tait coming. First thing I knew, a cat shrieked, and there was that guy coming at me with an Eskimo harpoon, a spike this long!" He measured an exaggerated twelve inches with his hands. "Koko was snarling. The other cat was flying around, screaming. And there was that maniac, coming at me with a spike! Everything went out of focus. Then — crash!

Tait fell flat on his face." Qwilleran displayed his bandaged hand. "He must have hurled the spike as he fell." Arch Riker said, "Tell them how your cat tripped him up." Qwilleran took time to light his pipe, while his audience waited for the inside story: "Koko was on a long leash, and he flew around in circles so fast — all I could see was a smoke ring in midair. And when Tait crashed to the floor, his legs were neatly trussed up in twelve feet of cord." "Crazy!" said the photographer. "Wish I'd been there with a movie camera." "I picked up the jade spike and kept Tait down on the floor while I called the police on that gold-plated French phone." "When you go, you go first class," Bunsen said. Then Lodge Kendall arrived from Headquarters. "Qwill was right all along," he told everyone. "The houseboy was innocent. Tait has told the police that he staked Paolo to a one-way fare to Mexico, then transferred the jade to the wardrobe cabinet and threw one piece behind Paolo's bed. And you remember the missing luggage? He'd given it to the boy himself." "Was it the insurance money he was after?" "Chiefly. Tait wasn't an astute businessman.

He'd lost the family fortune, and he needed a large sum of cash to invest in another harebrained scheme…. But there was something else, too. He hates the Fluxion. Ever since they played up his role in a paternity case." "I'd like to know why he didn't settle that claim out of court," Qwilleran said.